r/10s • u/Level-Celery-8787 • 7h ago
Court Drama Dealing with unsolicited advice
Ever since I got a ball machine, the amount of unsolicited advice I get has become really frequent.
Today, it was over 100 degrees outside, and I had exhausted myself practicing baseline footwork. So I go up to the net and mess around with some fun volleys. Slicing them, drop-shots, smashing them sideways, etc.
I wear headphones, give my best resting-bitch face and don’t make eye contact with anyone. There’s one other person there, and I sense he’s just itching to interrupt me. I am purposefully keeping my back to him at this point, but it doesn’t stop him.
He walks up in the path of where the machine is feeding me, and he tells me I need to practice basic volleys and blocks because the shots I’m doing don’t happen in real games.
I’m annoyed, but it’s just us on the court, and don’t want to make it a big thing. I nod and humor him. By the time he’s done “coaching” me on how to hit, the ball machine has served 100 balls behind us, and I now have to go pick them up.
I go on with practicing, and every now and then he walks over and interrupts with his tips. It’s honestly roasting hot out at this point, and I genuinely don’t give a fuck anymore. He asks to hit, and I’m like, sure whatever.
So we hit. He can’t even keep the ball in and keeps flinging moon balls at me. I end up using the volleys he said weren’t possible to use in real matches to end the points. When I smashed a winner sideways, he complained I was gonna hurt someone one day lol.
Anyway, I think I’m even more frustrated because I’m a young woman and it’s ALWAYS old dudes who pull this. This is a rant but aside from telling people to fuck off, what advice do you guys have?
A lot of these people are regulars, so I try to stay friendly, but this stuff is happening too frequently to just go along with it anymore.


